Once, he could have won the Heisman Trophy and been an NFL star. On Sunday, adding to Page 2 or 3 or 4 of his police blotter, he was charged in Los Angeles for allegedly putting the foot to the floor of a stolen Honda and trying to run down a gaggle of fleeing teenagers in a park.

Lawrence Phillips. Who bad-acted his way off the St. Louis Rams, the Miami Dolphins, the San Francisco 49ers, and out of the CFL.

Who, according to published reports, last year hawked one of his Nebraska conference championship rings for $20 at a Las Vegas pawn shop.

Who apparently got in trouble Sunday when he grew enraged at some kids after joining their football game, even while San Diego police were looking for him on an assault charge, which includes allegedly choking his girlfriend into unconsciousness. A 30-year-old, who grew up in a youth home, still trapped in angry adolescence.

Once, his college coach famously gave him a second chance, and will forever be tainted for it. And you wonder now how many other coaches, facing the dilemma of what to do with a wayward athlete, pause a moment, and think of Lawrence Phillips. At least, they should.

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The numbers are still there in the Nebraska record book, impervious to felony. They remind the world that on Jan. 2, 1996, Lawrence Phillips rushed for 165 yards and two touchdowns as the Cornhuskers crushed Florida 62-24 in the Fiesta Bowl to repeat as national champions.

That Phillips was even playing had created a firestorm. Earlier in the season, he was put on probation for assaulting his girlfriend. To wit: dragging her downstairs by her hair, bashing her head against a mailbox. After a suspension — he had rushed for 359 yards and seven touchdowns in the first two games of the season — Huskers coach Tom Osborne reinstated Phillips in late October, and there he was in the backfield that January night in Tempe.

Osborne defending his actions by saying anybody deserved another chance.

"Some people feel like we didn't do anything to him," Osborne said at the time in an Associated Press story. "But I imagine by suspending him, I took several million dollars away from Lawrence Phillips. He's paid a price."

It had the strong whiff of cutting corners on principle, to be ready for the big game. A mixed-message fiasco. To the cynics, the title came with an asterisk. The charitable would say Osborne sought to help save a troubled soul. But help is something Phillips never knew how to use.

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The Rams drafted Phillips in the first round but soon had to get rid of him. The long decline followed, from city to city, third chance to fourth chance to fifth chance, blowup to blowup, several involving women.

He seems more pathetic now than malicious. At 30, many gifted running backs are still chasing Super Bowls. Lawrence Phillips, on the lam, is playing pickup football with teenagers in a park. And then melting down again.

Osborne is a three-term U.S. congressman from Nebraska, a Republican running for governor. His football record was remarkable. But he will forever have Phillips pinned to his legacy. Phillips' reinstatement was, as many suspected then and know now, a horrendous mistake.

Yet it is impossible to say that a hard-line Osborne might have prevented what followed. Sport claims to build character, but does not always show a great record at it. Some fights are unwinnable. What is certain is that Tom Osborne, and every other coach who followed, never had an answer for Lawrence Phillips.